Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO CUPID, by CHARLES COTTON


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TO CUPID, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Fond love, deliver up thy bow
Last Line: Two loves would make all women mad.
Subject(s): Love


I

FOND Love, deliver up thy bow,
I am become more Love than thou;
I am as wanton grown, and wild,
Much less a man, and more a child,
From Venus born, of chaster kind,
A better archer, though as blind.

II

Surrender without more ado,
I am both King and Subject too,
I will command, but must obey,
I am the hunter, and the prey,
I vanquish, yet am overcome,
And sentencing receive my doom.

III

No springing Beauty 'scapes my dart,
And ev'ry ripe one wounds my heart;
Thus whilst I wound, I wounded am,
And, firing others, turn to flame,
To show how far Love can combine
The mortal part with the divine.

IV

Faith, quit thine Empire, and come down,
That thou and I may share the Crown,
I've tri'd the worst thy arms can do,
Come then, and taste my power too,
Which (howsoe'er it may fall short)
Will doubtless prove the better sport.

V

Yet do not; for in field and town,
The females are so loving grown,
So kind, or else so lustful, we
Can neither err, though neither see;
Keep then thine own dominions, Lad,
Two Loves would make all women mad.





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